This invention relates to a process for treating wild rice. More specifically, it relates to a process for popping wild rice to form a snack food or breakfast cereal exhibiting a tasty nutty flavor.
Wild rice is indigenous to North America and is grown only in limited geographic areas. Many consider wild rice to be a delicacy and exclusive restaurants serve it with pride in a variety of ways as a house specialty.
The potential of processing wild rice to serve it as a natural snack food, however, has never been fully exploited. This is primarily due to the difficulties of working with wild rice on a commercial scale.
While others, in the past, have tried to develop processes to pop wild rice on a commercial scale to make an acceptable snack food, these processes have not been proven acceptable because they tend to be very expensive, complex or yield a product which is not wholly satisfactory.
For example, others have tried to pop wild rice using cooking oils. The residue of such oils left in the rice, however, contributed to undesirable flavors and additives. Various dry popping techniques are described in the following patents: U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,845,701 which issued on Nov. 5, 1974 to Sachnik, 1,631,145 which issued on June 7, 1927 to J. F. Nooman, 508,125 which issued on Nov. 7, 1893 to Jay White, 1,201,510 which issued on Oct. 17, 1916 to William Schuyler, 1,266,448 which issued on May 14, 1918 to Hazime Fukuda, and 3,411,430 which issued Nov. 19, 1968 to W. C. Rockwell. However, "dry" popping techniques developed for use in conjunction with other grains have not proven to be satisfactory for popping wild rice on a commercial scale.
Many difficulties are inherent in attempting to pop wild rice on a commercial scale. The major problems encountered when attempting to use the processes and tools described in the above-listed patents center upon the fact that much higher temperatures are required for a shortened exposure time when popping wild rice than when popping other grains, such as corn or even white rice.